Kanye West in 20 Words

Kanye West turns 40 today. While everybody is entitled to their own opinion of Ye, he’s still one of the most influential people of our generation. It’s amazing what Ye’s accomplished in almost half a century in the music and fashion industries, but most importantly the culture.

With his finger in so many proverbial pots, it can sometimes be hard to keep track of all of Yeezy’s accomplishments, and it doesn’t appear to be getting any easier. Like Prince or Woody Allen, Ye seems to only be getting more prolific as time goes on– no signs of slowing down with age. So, before it’s too difficult to sift through the ever growing list of accolades, let’s celebrate the birthday boy by going through the 20 most powerful words that describe, Ye.

ConfidenceKanye West has a long history of ranting but this interview was the beginning of it all. It all started with the question, “What happened to the red Octobers?” Kanye West answered with utter confidence and pride ultimately shooting Sway down.

Ambition
Kanye West defends himself as a creator with an expansive platform. “My mother made me believe in myself. No matter how many people tell me stop believing in yourself, stop saying what you’re going to do… I refuse to follow those rules.”

PrivacyTMZ has grown very fond of Yeezy even though he hates paparazzi. He tends to seclude
himself in order to maintain sanity but the run-ins with the paps have become a viral sensation.

Faith
Exposing a softer side Kanye West dropped the exclusive single “Only One” depicting a conversation between him and his deceased mother Donda West. “I talked to God about you, he said he sent you an angel/ And look at all that he gave you/ You asked for one and you got two.”

Love
Kanye made a home video of some of Kim K’s most memorable moments for her on her birthday. The video also pays tribute to Kim’s father who shot all the scenes included.

Awkward
Let’s just say “Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.”

Rockstar
Kanye basically tells Zane Lowe to get with the times.”I AM A ROCKSTAR!”

God
Kanye continues his rant with Zane by telling us what exactly he is, a God.

Endearment
Donda West makes a special appearance on this home video where Kanye sings her the dedicated song,”Hey Mama.” He shares the love for her not only in this intimate video but always and forever.

Political
Kanye made it clear that he is not a fan of Bush. He joined Mike Myers for an awkward Red Cross PSA that goes off script.

Self Belief
“If you’re a Kanye West fan you’re not a fan of me you’re a fan of yourself.” Kanye West basically covers how to believe in yourself and how your self esteem shows your character in the BBC interview.

Motivation
Kanye shares how trying really shows how motivated you are, since people are so afraid of losing. His goal is to motivate the doers.

Humans
“We are all one family.” Kanye describes how if we as humans separate ourselves from what we are perceived to be and just focus on helping one another the world would be a different place.

Fairness
Kanye interviewed with Access Hollywood and throughout the whole interview he describes how important it is to be fair. He wanted other artists to get more recognition than the ones that were winning most of the awards at the time.

Curiosity
We are throwing it back to an interview from 2007, where Kanye explains how asking questions is a good thing. He shares with us how being wrong isn’t always a bad thing and it is something you can learn from.

Relatable
“I’m trying to get the songs to get to the people.” Kanye explains how his goal is to get his music to be as relatable as possible so he thinks about what people can be going through in their everyday lives.

Life
“If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment.” Kanye’s speech at the 47th Grammy Awards is truly inspiring and he shares how it important it is to appreciate moments we have in life.

Hard Work
Kanye and Jay- Z won at the BET awards. In his speech he explains to us how much they both put into the music similarly to a new artist trying to make it big.

Realness
“I’m sorry daytime television I’m sorry for the realness,” on one of his most recent Ellen interviews Kanye gets real. He describes to us how he can make the world so much better. He wants to take his knowledge and artistry and use that to improve people’s lives.

Success
“Inspiring people is the definition of success.” Kanye wants to change the definition of the status quo and to inspire others.